Internet cookies have become a ubiquitous and invaluable tool for performing internet advertising and other important online functions. Traditional techniques for targeting electronic advertising involve configuring users' Internet browsers such that third party cookies can be set, read from, and written to. When a cookie is set on a browser, one of the identifying elements of the cookie is the domain from which it was served. If an Internet user visits, for example, www.site.com and that site contains code to set a cookie, then that cookie will be set with “site.com” as its domain. Such a cookie is commonly referred to as a “first party cookie” because the domain of the cookie matches that of the site URL that the user visited in his or her browser. Continuing this illustrative example, site.com can also embed code that pulls content, such as ads, from URLs that are not on the site.com domain and those ads can also set cookies. For example, site.com can have code on its page that pulls an ad from, by way of example, www.adnetwork.com. The ad will be served from adnetwork.com and will set cookies on the adnetwork.com domain. Such a cookie is commonly referred to as a “third party cookie” because the domain of the cookie does not match that of the site URL visited by the user.
Online advertising may be significantly enhanced by web browsers that, by default or by settings, allow third party cookies, and by people who permit visited sites to set and read third party cookies. Use of third party cookies enables ad networks to access cookies that they set across a wide network of websites, thereby enabling behavioral and contextual advertising to web viewers across many visited websites. Specifically, web browsers that are set to allow third party cookies will allow, for example, adnetwork.com to set its cookie despite the user having visited www.site.com. Furthermore, the same browser setting will also allow adnetwork.com to access any cookies set under their domain regardless of which site the Internet user is visiting.
By way of background, ad networks typically have hundreds or thousands of partners (often referred to as “publishers”) that publish online content along with “ad tags” provided by their partner ad network. For example, each of a news website (www.news.com), a blog (www.blog.com), and an informational website (www.info.com), among others, may engage an ad network to efficiently and profitably advertise to those websites' viewers. The ad network provides each of those sites with an ad tag having the ad network's domain, e.g., “adnetwork.com.” For any visitors, or more specifically, visitors' browsers that allow third party cookies, the ad network may access cookie data of visitors to its partners' sites (i.e., across its entire network of sites), even though those sites' domains (e.g., www.news.com, etc.) do not match the ad network's domain. Specifically, the ad network's ad tag on each site may access cookie data associated with the domain of the ad tag. As a result, the ad network may learn more about a user's browsing history across its network, and therefore more about the user's likely demographics, interests, purchasing goals, and other useful advertising information.
Web browsers that are set to allow only first party cookies will allow cookies to be set only from the site being visited by the user. Furthermore, they will only allow access to cookies set on the domain of the site being visited. As a result, ad networks are traditionally unable to perform advanced targeting and advertising in relation to web browsers that do not enable third party cookies. Because online advertisers are interested in improved targeting to their intended audience, ad networks also have a strong interest in providing targeting even to browsers that are set to accept and provide access only to first party cookies.
Accordingly, a need exists for systems and methods for enabling targeting of electronic advertisements to browsers that accept only first party cookies. More generally, a need exists for systems and methods for electronic advertising based on first party cookie data.